Junior
by RMP
Summary: [remake of original i wrote way back] Chester wasn't a bad kid. Just a kid with nowhere to go and no one to turn to. When he gets sentenced to CGL, he has to learn to live by the harsh rules of the desert. And maybe learn to trust again as well.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Memories clouded his vision, memories of mothers who scream and hit and fathers who only show up once a month to beg for money. Memories of flames that dance menacingly in front of your eyes, threatening to engulf you. Memories of hard cement to sleep on and people that stare at you as they walk past.

_BUMP._

The yellow bus hit a pothole and jerked fourteen year old Chester out of his nightmare. He groggily opened his eyes and looked out the window. All there was to see was coarse dirt and clusters of holes that went on for miles.

The bus finally stopped in front of a group of small buildings and tents that looked worn out. Chester pushed his light brown hair out of his eyes, the blistering heat from the sun causing him to sweat.

The judge had called this place 'Camp Green Lake'. Chester looked around, but he didn't see a lake or anything green, except for the two small trees in front of a cabin separated from the rest of the camp.

The guard who had been sitting in the front of the bus unhooked the handcuffs that had been holding Chester to his seat. Grateful, Chester started to stand up when the guard roughly shoved him back down.

"I didn't say to get up. Wait here."

The guard stepped off of the bus and talked to a man wearing a cowboy hat who had walked up. Chester couldn't hear what they were saying, but the guard starting laughing about something. Then he came back on the bus and said, "Well, what are you waiting for? Get down here."

Chester got up, clutching his green book bag that held his few possessions in his hand.

The man in the cowboy hat scanned Chester's figure before turning to the guard and saying, "I doubt he'll last a week out here."

He spit out a sunflower seed and laughed. The guard just shrugged and handed the man a file. The man handed a drink to the guard, who thanked him and got back on the bus.

As the bus drove back down the winding dirt road, the man turned to Chester and said, "My name is Mr. Sir. Whenever you speak to me you will call me by my name. Is that clear?"

Chester stood there for a minute, unsure of whether he should reply or not.

"I said, is that clear?"

"Y-yes, Mr. Sir," he finally stammered.

"Good," Mr. Sir said. He turned and led Chester into a building marked "Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility – Main Office". He doubted whether there were any more offices here, since the only other building he saw other than tents was marked "wreck room".

Mr. Sir opened up the file the guard had given him and scanned over it. He pulled out a drawer in the filing cabinet behind him and placed the file in there.

"Follow me."

Mr. Sir led Chester into a shed filled with orange jumpsuits. He handed Chester two of them and then grabbed the book bag and started going through it. While he did that, he explained that one suit was for work and one was for relaxation. Chester had to change into one of the suits in front of Mr. Sir so he could check for weapons.

After he was done, Mr. Sir tossed Chester his book bag and went on, "You are to dig one hole each day. It should be five feet deep and five feet wide. Your shovel is your measuring stick."

Chester nodded, wondering what kind of camp this was.

"Chester!" somebody called from behind him. Chester flinched and tensed his body out of habit.

"Oh, God," Mr. Sir said, obviously annoyed.

"I know you may have made some mistakes in your past, but that does not make you a bad person. I respect you, Chester," said the new man as he walked up. Chester turned around to face him. The man had on khaki shorts and a polo shirt. He had a mustache and a beard, a blotch of sunscreen on his nose, and a huge smile that unnerved Chester.

"I'm out," Mr. Sir declared, and left.

"Follow me," the man said. "I'm Mr. Pendanski. I'll be your counselor while you're here. You'll stay in D Tent. D stands for Diligence."

Mr. Pendanski led Chester to a group of three boys carrying shovels.

"Hey, Mom, who's the new kid?" the one in the front asked. The other two stood behind him.

"Chester, this is Rex. The two behind him are Alan and Theodore," Mr. Pendanski said, pointing to each boy in turn.

"Hey, my name's X-Ray," the boy said defensively. "And those two are Squid and Armpit."

"Yes, well, they all have their little nicknames. I prefer to call them by their real names," Mr. Pendanski said, still smiling. "Come on, let's meet the rest of the boys."

X-Ray, Squid, and Armpit put their shovels in a shed marked "library" and followed Chester and Mr. Pendanski to a tent with a huge "D" on the side.

Inside were three other boys. Mr. Pendanski called the first two Ricky and Jose. X-Ray called them Zigzag and Magnet. Mr. Pendanski and X-Ray both called the last boy Zero.

"I'm counting on all of you to help Chester. You all remember what it was like to be new."

All the boys grunted in approval. Finally, Mr. Pendanski left all of them alone.

"Come on, Chester. We'll show you the wreck room," one of the boys said. Chester was pretty sure it was Ricky, or Zigzag.

All the boys got up to go, so Chester followed behind them silently. The boys seemed nice and acted like they liked him, but Chester had learned not to trust people. He was constantly on his guard and being in a bigger group of people made him nervous.

Chester had been living on the streets for almost two months before he was caught stealing and sent to Camp Green Lake. But even before that he never had friends. He stopped going to school at a young age and there weren't many kids in his neighborhood.

The only person he ever spent time with was his mother, and he hated being with her. She was an alcoholic who constantly screamed at him and hit him. His father ran off when Chester was eight, and only showed up every once in a while to beg for food or money. Not that Chester and his mom ever had any, so most visits ended in Chester's parents screaming at each other and his father leaving, claiming he'd never come back.

But he always did.

Chester didn't miss his dad at all. Even when he lived with them, all he did was yell and hit, just like Chester's mom.

Chester had never had anyone care about him. The only thing he owned were a few pairs of clothes that his mother gave him when his old clothes got too small for him to wear.

He'd always had to find food for himself, ever since he could remember. By the time he was seven, he'd learned to sneak into other people's houses in the neighborhood and take food from them. He had to be careful not to be caught though, because most everyone else in the neighborhood were drug dealers and criminals, and if they caught him they'd probably kill him.

So when he finally got tired of his mother one day and left the house for good, it wasn't hard to get used to sneaking into other people's houses to take whatever he needed. He never stole anything big. Just food, mostly.

But then he finally got caught, and the judge sentenced him to eighteen months in Camp Green Lake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Chester barely slept that night. He had gotten used to only sleeping when he knew his mother was passed out drunk. All night he lay still, listening for any noise. Other than the occasional snore of the other boys, he heard nothing. It didn't make him any less nervous though. Late in the night exhaustion finally took hold and he fell asleep.

The trumpets sounded at 4:30 the next morning, jerking Chester out of a restless sleep. The other boys groaned as they got up and pulled on their orange jumpsuits. Chester slowly climbed out of his cot and pulled on his own.

One of the boys, X-Ray, came over to Chester.

"Hey, first-timer. Ready to dig your first hole?"

Chester stared at him blankly. X-Ray just laughed.

"Still asleep, right? Come on, let's go."

They followed the rest of D-Tent out onto the lake. On the way they were all given a shovel and some kind of food that looked bad and tasted worse. Chester could barely get it down, but he figured he'd need the energy later and forced himself to finish it.

Once on the lake, Mr. Sir showed all the boys where to dig. He came to Chester last.

He made a indentation in the dirt with the front of his boot. "Dig here. If you find anything interesting, show it to me or Mr. Pendanski."

"Yes, Mr. Sir."

"Well, what are you waiting for? Dig!"

Chester slammed his shovel into the dirt. It reverberated off the hard ground, leaving only a slight indentation. Behind him, Mr. Sir laughed.

"This ain't no girl scout camp!" he yelled over his shoulder as he walked off.

Chester tried again and again to break through the dirt, making little progress. He wasn't strong enough. He tried jumping on the back of the shovel. His frail body didn't weigh near enough to do any good.

Chester looked around at the other boys and watched what they were doing. Finally he turned back to his own 'hole' and copied the technique: sticking his shovel in the dirt, he used all of his strength to push it farther in with his foot. Finally, dirt broke loose into his shovel.

Under the hard crust at the top, the dirt was fairly easy to dig. As the day wore on, Chester got more and more tired and weak. By the time the water truck came around for the second time, he was way behind the others.

He stood in his place in line, at the very back behind Zero. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and shielded his eyes from the sun. He realized that the longer it took him to finish his hole the hotter it would get. The heat was unbearable even now, during the morning. What would it be like around midday?

After getting his canteen filled, Chester went back to his hole and started digging again. The rest of the boys, except for Zero, were taking a break. Chester couldn't afford to lose any time. He was already well behind the others.

His whole body ached every time he lifted the shovel. He was beginning to get blisters on his hands and his back ached. It was almost unbearable to lift the shovel up over his shoulder to throw the dirt far enough away from his hole.

"Having fun?" one of the boys asked from behind Chester. He turned around to see Squid standing there smiling. He looked back down at his hole.

"Not really. I can barely lift the shovel."

Chester leaned his shovel against the side of his hole and sat down for a minute.

"Everyone's like that when they first get here. First hole's the hardest, right? Just take it one shovelful at a time."

Chester closed his eyes and groaned.

----

The other boys finished long before Chester did. He was out under the sun for the better part of the day.

He finally finished about an hour after the last boy had headed back to camp. He sat down in his hole for a second, feeling dizzy from all the heat. He drank the last little bit of water from his canteen and sighed.

Eighteen more months of this. _How many holes is that?_ Chester wondered. He didn't know exactly how many days were in a month, and even if he did he had no idea how to multiply. Even when he did go to school he was never any good at math, and it had been years since the last time he was at school.

Chester climbed out of his hole, every muscle in his body straining with the effort. When he got back to the camp, he grabbed his 'relaxation suit' and went to the showers. Mr. Sir had explained the day before that the showers only lasted four minutes.

Chester spent the whole four minutes just letting the water run over him. He was too sore to worry about how clean he was. Besides, none of the other boys looked any better than him.

After he finished the shower, he headed to the wreck room, where all the other boys at camp were.

It was loud and noisy in the room. Boys from other tents were arguing and yelling, and every once in a while a fight would break out. Most of the furniture was broken.

Chester chose an empty seat in the corner. The covering on the chair was ripped, and stuffing could be seen through it. He sat down in the chair and closed his eyes, tuning out all the noise. All he wanted was sleep… rest…

_Chester collapsed to the ground. His mother kicked him over and over. He desperately shielded his face and curled up into a ball to protect himself.  
"I HATE YOU! YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!"  
She grabbed his shirt collar and raised him up off the floor a bit.  
"You're not going to cry, are you?" she asked menacingly. Chester shook his head vigorously.  
"Good!" she spat, and threw him to the ground. She lit a cigarette and walked off, leaving Chester on the floor. He bit his lip to keep from crying… his mother hated crying._

"Chester! Wake up, man!" somebody yelled, shaking him. Chester opened his eyes to see all of D Tent staring at him, as well as a few other boys who had stopped what they were doing to stare curiously.

"You're almost like Squid over here, screaming like hell when you sleep," X-Ray said. Chester glanced at Squid, who was staring at X-Ray with a scowl on his face.

"Yea, a Squid, Jr.," Magnet said, smiling.

"Just do me a favor and keep the screaming to a minimum," X-Ray said. He smiled slightly and then walked off. Everyone else followed him, except Squid, who sat down next to Chester.

"What was that about?" he asked curiously.

Chester picked at the stuffing in the chair and stared straight ahead.

"It's… nothing," he said.

"C'mon, you can trust me," Squid said.

Chester glanced over at him. The boys here were so different than anyone Chester had ever known. They were different somehow. And he wasn't sure if he could trust them.

"Sorry."

They sat there in uncomfortable silence for a minute, before Squid asked, "So- what'd you do to get here?"

Chester hesitated a moment before saying, "I ran away from home. And I stole a lot of stuff…"

"Oh yea, me too. I didn't run away from home but I got caught for stealing. I just took stuff that wasn't worth much. Not like Magnet," Squid stopped a second and laughed. "Oh, man. Magnet definitely took the best stuff."

"I just took food and stuff. From houses, not stores. It's easier that way."

"Yea."

Magnet walked up to them then. "Come on, you guys. Time to eat!"

Chester and Squid got up and followed Magnet. Chester was glad for food; he was starving.

At dinner, the other boys asked Chester what he had done to get sent to Camp Green Lake. He just told them he stole. It was harder to talk to the big group. It was a lot easier to talk to just one person at a time.

"What'd you steal?" Magnet asked, not satisfied.

"Just… invaluable things. Food."

"Really? I went for the big stuff. I walked out of Wal-Mart once with a stolen DVD player, and the greeter held the door open for me! It's all about your style."

Squid laughed. "Then how come you got caught?"

"Stupid puppy wouldn't quit barking. It wasn't my fault. I still have the magic fingers," Magnet said, holding up his hands and wiggling his fingers to prove it.

After dinner everyone went back to their tents. They all stayed up a little longer talking before finally drifting off one by one. Chester didn't talk much the whole time, but he loved listening to the others talk. The way they just said everything effortlessly, without getting nervous or scared and stuttering, or anything like that amazed him.

It didn't take Chester very long at all to fall asleep this time. His muscles and were exhausted.

It seemed as if Chester had just gotten to sleep when the trumpet went off to wake them all up at 4:30 A.M. It was harder to get up out of bed this time. Chester's whole body hurt even worse than it had the night before. Even getting dressed took effort. He knew that there was no way he'd ever be able to dig another hole that day.


End file.
